Monday, July 11, 2011

What did you do in the format wars, daddy?

We built the Google eBooks platform to be open to all publishers, retailers and manufacturers. Manufacturers like iriver can use Google Books APIs and services to connect their devices to the full Google eBooks catalog...

My daughter has an Amazon Kindle but I'm still holding off, hoping for the day when the e-book industry finds its mp3, its VHS, its Blu-Ray, its DVD -- the standard product format that can be read on all devices -- and then competes for who has the best catalog and who has the best hardware.

I may be waiting a long time, I realize. Amazon seems to be doing pretty well with its proprietary software/hardware combo and its device just keeps getting cheaper. It may be that e-books will always be like razors and blades -- an industry that offers a variety of wholly satisfactory but non-interchangable products where it's not unusual to have two or three different formats in a given house.

Posted at 08:15:27 PM

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epub is pretty much the industry standard now. Amazon is the only one being weird. The kindle is locked down. On all the other online book stores the format is epub. You can download free (out of copyright) books from Google Books and Project Gutenberg in epub. Even the pirate sites. And you can drag and drop these epub files onto the Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo et al it's just Amazon that's different.

Now's a good time to get a device. They are all about the same $140 or so price range. I have a Sony Pocket Reader and now read pretty much everything on that.

The only problem with the epub format is when the publisher is converting the text to epub the software sometimes substitutes a different word. It might be a letter off. The software is making a guess as to what word it thinks it is. Apparently the publishers don't have someone proof read afterwords. Oh. well. It's a minor inconvenience.

I have a Color Nook. I'm trying hard to love it. And in some respects I do but ... I have a book that -- as one of the commenters above says -- is off by a letter or two. That person calls it a minor inconvience. It is not. It is a major distraction, at least for this book, so much so that I cannot read the book on my Nook.

It just isn't the same. I am so used to curling up with a book every night. Every night. And I can curl up with the Nook, but it's just not the same. I don't find myself picking it up and reading for a few minutes as I would with a real book.

Yet ... it's OK. It's just not the same. And I guess I personally will have to come to terms with that, and enjoy the Nook for what it offersn and overlook what it doesn't provide.

But the typos? NOT a minor inconvenience. Those are deal-breakers, when they occur several times a page, many pages per chapter.

Living abroad in a non-English speaking country, with 95% of my book collection in storage, I have grown an unnatural love for my Nook (original, not color). Yes, the typos can be distressing, but I do not care. I have easy access to books again and it is wonderful.

I found that I physically enjoy reading more with the Nook (and probably with any e-reader) than with a real book. I can read with a drink in one hand much easier - heck, I can halfheartedly pet the dog while reading.

With many e-readers you can check out items from the library. For my husband, it was the feel of the reader that mattered most. Amazon was straight out, because of their DRM policy, which Cope noted above. He held all the rest and decided the Nook was for him. I followed four months later with my own and I'm never going back.

Start reading on one, Eric. Take a loaded e-reader on your next vacation. It's a wonderful thing, whether it is a Sony, Nook or Kobo.

--I got a Kindle and am less than thrilled. The navigation buttons are way too small, so that's a pain. There is room on the thing for them to be bigger. As far as I can tell, it has only one serif font, and it is a very unattractive one. Also, the type is set justified, but they won't break words with hyphens, so the typesetting is not so great. Finally, I find $9.99 a bit steep for some of the lesser titles. And am I right that you can't get any free public domain books?

I'm not too worried about the format. The price just isn't that high--and I used Amex points. If the thing gets me through a few vacations, I'll be OK with it.

I have a Kindle, and I've read more in the last six months than I had in two years previous--it's so much easier to read than a book, and more portable. It's not hard to convert books from other formats to .mobi. It's not even hard to read library books on it, if you're willing to break the law. (I have a "Library" collection that reminds me to delete those books when I'm done with them, so I can tell myself I'm not really stealing anything. Yes, I'm rationalizing.)

All that said, if the latest version of the Nook had been available when I got my Kindle, I probably would have got the Nook instead. But at this point, thanks to the free Calibre software, I don't think the file format matters.

And for the record, I haven't noticed more typos in purchased Kindle books than in paper books. For what that's worth.

--I have a tablet with Overdrive as my primary reader because I like to check out e-books from the Chicago public library. I also have Calibre and Sigil on my PC so I can reformat books to fit my device. One of the prime uses is to convert freely available pdf and html sources into epubs for reading offline.

I don't know how much computer know-how is enough. It's not quite satisfactory and some people are simply not going to get it. Still, with a bit of help, you can tweak these devices and get a lot out of them.

First, the two biggest sites for free books, project gutenberg and manybooks.net will let you download their books in kindle format. You have to copy them over with USB, but it isn't difficult. Pretty much anything prior to 1922 is available for free. Other publishers, such as Baen Books, will sell you books with infinite downloads in all formats.

If typo's bug you, you can download in html and make your own kindle books. Hobbyists can add tables of contents and illustrations. (For example, for some strange reason, you can find Alice in Wonderland text and you can find the Tenniel illustrations but not both in the same book.)

OK, I get the whole e-book thing...but part of the immense satisfaction of reading a book is holding it in your hands and turning the pages.

ZORN REPLY -- From my limited experience with my daughter's Kindle, I disagree. You sound like those atavists who enthused about the joy of holding a vinyl disc and setting down the needle on the platter. Meh.

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